How To Change Reading Pane In Outlook

Outlook's Reading pane—a.thousand.a. Preview pane—displays the text of a message you've selected, preventing y'all from having to open up the bodily bulletin to work with it. Here'due south how to customize the Reading pane to conform your needs.

Outlook comes with several dissimilar panes, including those you lot see past default—the Navigation pane, for example—and others you might not carp with much—like the To-Exercise and People panes. Each of these is designed to make it easier to find, see, and manage things in Outlook. Nosotros're going exist taking a expect at these panes throughout several articles, showing you how to access, work with, and customize them. And we're starting with the Reading pane.

The Reading pane is enabled by default. When you click on a message in any binder, the pane displays the contents of that message, along with bones controls for replying and forwarding the message.

By default, Outlook shows the Reading pane to the right of the folders and letters, just you tin can change this by going to View > Reading Pane.

Your options are to modify the position to "Bottom" (then Outlook shows the Reading pane below messages) or "Off," which hides the Reading pane. These options utilize to the Reading pane no thing what folder you're in, so you tin can't set a dissimilar position setting for different folders.

Setting the pane to "Bottom" means you see fewer messages in the folder, but you lot see more than details virtually that bulletin and more of its content in the Reading pane. This was the traditional view before the appearance of wide-screen monitors, and many people still favor it.

Setting the pane to "Off" maximizes the number of items you can see in the folder, but you don't see any of the mail service content. This is a useful option if you're clearing out postal service, especially if you lot employ information technology in conjunction with the View > Message Preview function.

In the standard folder view, Bulletin Preview is turned off. This ways that you just see the information shown in the columns in the folder—To, From, Subject, Received, and so on. But if y'all set Message Preview to ane Line, 2 Lines, or 3 Lines, you'll too see one, 2 or 3 lines of the content of each message, without needing the Reading pane. Some people beloved this setting; some discover it too cluttered. You lot'll have to experiment with information technology to see what you think.

RELATED: How to Create and Customize a Folder View in Outlook

Simply the Reading pane does more than than testify you the contents of your message. It likewise determines how Outlook marks letters as read and lets you move through your messages using a single central. By default, Outlook marks a mail as "read" once you've spent five seconds with information technology selected, only you can change this by going to View > Reading Pane and selecting "Options."

Of course, this existence Outlook, in that location are other ways to access these options. Yous tin also go to File > Options > Post > Reading Pane (or Advanced > Reading pane) to open the aforementioned options.

Whichever way you cull, the Reading pane window will announced.

Out of the box, Outlook volition "Marker items equally read when viewed in the Reading Pane" after 5 seconds. You lot can change this time to anything from zero (i.e., it'southward marked as read immediately when you select it) to 999 seconds. If yous want Outlook to wait more a few seconds and then you might prefer the second option, "Mark detail as read when the selection changes." This is an either/or situation: you tin can tell Outlook to mark items as read afterward a particular time, or y'all tin can tell Outlook to mark items every bit read when yous move to another item, but not both.

The adjacent option, "Single key reading using space bar" is really useful if you lot like to navigate using the keyboard. When yous accomplish a message that'due south longer than the Reading pane can evidence, you can striking the infinite bar to move down a page in that message. When yous achieve the end of the bulletin, hitting spacebar moves to the next message. This works well in conjunction with using the Up and Downwardly arrows to navigate through your folder—they let yous movement through the folder, and the spacebar lets yous motility through the selected message.

Finally, there is the "Turn on automatic full-screen reading in portrait orientation" choice. This is for tablet users, and if it'southward switched on then when your tablet is in portrait orientation, clicking a message minimizes the Navigation pane, hides the reading pane, and displays the selected message using the full screen. This won't piece of work if you select the message using the Up and Down arrows or the spacebar—just if you select the message using the trackpad/mouse or your finger.

If you're non working in portrait orientation and you lot want a footling more screen real estate to view your messages, you can switch to Reading mode past clicking on the icon at the bottom of the Outlook window.

This minimizes any other pinned panes—Navigation, To-Do, and People—to let yous focus on your messages. Y'all can display the panes over again past clicking the Normal mode icon.

The Reading pane tin can also help you read messages that are in a smaller than usual font, or if—every bit nosotros've occasionally done—you've left your reading glasses at dwelling. Utilise the Zoom control at the lesser of the Reading pane to increase the size of the contents (or make information technology smaller if it'southward too large).

Y'all can as well zoom past property Ctrl while using the scroll wheel on your mouse. This works on a per message ground, then if you increase the size of one message, the zoom level on the next message yous select volition yet be 100%.

None of these options piece of work if View > Reading Pane is fix to "Off," though. They but piece of work if the Reading pane is fix to "Right" or "Bottom."

The Reading pane is a simple only key part of the Outlook app, with plenty of useful features to help you shape your reading feel the mode you lot want information technology. If you've traditionally turned information technology off then now might exist a adept time to turn it back on and see if information technology can help make your workflow a little more pleasant and efficient.